Beaumont Aryan shows he's no snitch

By Dane Schiller

Published 3:01 am, Tuesday, May 21, 2013

An Aryan Brotherhood of Texas prison gang member and Beaumont native got his wish by showing the world he's no snitch.

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, who is presiding over a major racketeering case in Houston involving dozens of members of the gang and its associates who are accused of murder, drug trafficking, kidnapping and other crimes, appears to have reversed course by ruling that a plea agreement in the case should not be sealed.

Sealing or unsealing court documents might seem about as boring as watching paint dry, but if you are a member of a gang in which snitching is an unforgivable sin, it is important to lay your cards on the table.

Records can easily be checked online, and there are numerous examples of gang members being beaten, shot or stabbed for betraying the gang.

For years, sealed filings in all kinds of cases involving prison gangs and drug cartels have been seen as an indicator of who is secretly cooperating with the government - especially when it comes to plea agreements that could detail the leniency that comes with cooperation. In this case, prosecutors have sought to have all the plea agreements sealed in order to protect defendants who are cooperating by telling authorities all they know about the gang in exchange for leniency.

It remains to be seen if the judge will unseal documents that have been sealed, as well as not seal future documents.

Charles Lee Roberts, known as "Jive" in the Aryan gang, pleaded guilty earlier this month to racketeering, but the judge agreed with an oral request by the Beaumont man's lawyer, Todd Dupont, that the plea agreement remain public.

When he is sentenced in September, Roberts, 67, could get life in prison.

Richard O. Ely, the lawyer for another defendant in the case, James "Dirty" Meldrum, has said the strategy of sealing all plea agreements so that those defendants who are cooperating or not cooperating look the same to anyone searching records is wrong - and turns them into human shields for informants.

"This is a strategy made to protect people who are cooperating," Ely said. "The problem is that it is putting at risk people who are not cooperating."

Ely is challenging the sealing of his client's plea agreement, arguing that "by sealing every plea in this complicated case it hopes to confuse those that would retaliate against informers.

"Mr. Meldrum has done nothing to justify this added risk to his safety" Ely wrote in a court filing. "He is, in effect, a human shield created by the United States to protect its informants."